


World's Best Self-Appointed Father Figure

by Forlorn Kumquat (sara_wolfe)



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Michael is a Good Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 01:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/Forlorn%20Kumquat
Summary: Michael hadn't exactly set out to adopt four humans. But, when faced with their utterly disastrous families, well, what's a demon to do?





	World's Best Self-Appointed Father Figure

_“Because I wanted that mom!”_

Michael can’t get Eleanor’s words out of his head. Can’t stop hearing the pain in her voice, the way the words caught in her throat when she told him she wasn’t good enough for her mother. 

He’d known about her bad childhood; it had been an essential part of her file when she’d first been assigned to the Bad Place, and he’d used it over and over in various ways to torture her in the Neighborhood. But it was one thing to know it as a demon, when he hadn’t cared about anyone but himself, and completely another thing now that he knew what it felt like to love someone more than anything else in the universe. 

Empathy, he was discovering, could be a real bitch. 

But, pesky human emotions aside, Michael was nothing if not creative. He’d come up with the Neighborhood after all, and he’d defied Shawn and Vicki for over a hundred years without either of them figuring it out. Finding a way to heal Eleanor’s pain should be a piece of cake.

* * *

It was not a piece of cake. As he stared down at the crumpled scraps of paper littering the desk in front of him, Michael was starting to realize that it wasn’t even the entire cake. There was no cake to be had here.

“I think you let that metaphor get away from you,” Janet told him.

“How is something supposed to be as easy as cake, anyway?” Michael asked, not bothering to hide the grumpy tone in his voice. “Since when is cake easy? Cake is hard; all baking is hard.”

“Michael, focus,” Janet prompted him, poking at the scraps of paper. “You’re trying to help Eleanor.”

“No,” Michael corrected her, “I am trying to fix her abysmally-shitty childhood. Which is impossible, because I am not an all-powerful demon anymore, and I can’t just snap my fingers and make everything better like I really want to-”

“And even if you could, you wouldn’t because, as bad as it was, Eleanor’s childhood formed who she is as a person, and changing that would irrevocably change her, and we might have never met her,” Janet pointed out. 

“Must you always be right?” Michael asked.

“Yes.” Janet grinned at him, completely unrepentant. 

“I just want to be able to do something,” Michael said, staring at the scraps of paper like they held all the secrets of the universe. “Children should be happy, and carefree, and Eleanor never got a chance to really be a child, not like that. None of them did - Tahani’s parents never cared for her, and Jason’s father was always getting arrested, and Chidi’s anxiety always made him so miserable - and I just wish there was something I could do.”

Janet’s eyes lit up suddenly. “Maybe there is something.”

* * *

“You want to send all of us into Jane’s simulation world?” The skepticism was heavy in Chidi’s voice, not that Michael could blame him. “Why?”

“I’ll explain once we’re all in the simulation,” Michael repeated. “Look, it’ll be a lot easier to explain in the simulation, and I promise that you’re all going to be safe. I would never let anything bad happen to any of you.”

“We know that,” Tahani said, with a dismissive wave, startling him with her casual sincerity. “Michael, we trust you and Janet with our lives - our very souls, even. That’s not the problem. But we promised that we’d always be honest with one another." 

"Yeah, man,” Jason piped up. “Don’t hold out on us, now.”

“I say we just do it,” Eleanor spoke up, surprising him. She’d been quiet ever since their last conversation in the car, and he’d been afraid that she was angry with him for not telling her sooner about her and Chidi - or for telling her at all. Even now, the look on her face was unreadable and he had no idea what she was really feeling. “It’s just Janet’s VR machine; if we don’t like what we see, we can always leave.”

“Exactly,” Michael agreed. “If you don’t like what’s going on, you can leave at any time. But, please, just give me a chance to show you first.”

Janet passed out the earpieces. “I’ll be here the entire time monitoring you guys,” she said. “And anytime you want to leave the simulation, just pull the earpiece out.”

Everyone put their earpieces in, one at a time being transported to the white room simulation Janet had set up as a starting point. Michael went in last, appearing in an all-white room as soon as the earpiece was seated inside his ear. Even though he’d been expecting it, it still took him a second to process what he was seeing. Four small children stared up at him, varying degrees of confusion and disbelief on their faces. 

“What is this?” Tahani was the first to demand, stepping forward with her arms crossed over her chest. Michael had to fight back a smile at how young she sounded. 

“Just a simulation,” he reminded everyone, just in case they were freaking out. “Eleanor said something on the drive back from her mother’s that got me thinking. None of you ever had what could be called a normal childhood, and I wanted to give you some of what you never had a chance to experience. So, the simulation is meant to let you experience the world, physically and emotionally, as you would as a child.”

“If you turned us into kids,” Jason asked, “then why do I remember being an adult?”

“Well, we didn’t actually turn you into children,” Michael told him. “We just gave you simulated bodies that resembled your younger selves, and programmed Janet’s transmitters to give you the same kind of emotional responses that you would have experienced as children.”

Jason stared at him for a long moment, and then turned to Eleanor in a silent plea. 

“It’s like Star Trek, with the holodeck,” she told him, and Jason’s face lit up with joy. 

“That’s so awesome!” he crowed, happily. 

“Okay, we’re going to experience the world as children again,” Chidi said, slowly. “But, what exactly are we going to experience?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Michael told him. “Janet, if you would, please?”

The room shimmered around them, and when the blur of colors and shapes cleared up, they were standing in front of a tall castle. 

“Welcome to Disney World,” Michael said.

* * *

Space Mountain was their first stop. 

“I’ve never been on a roller coaster before,” Chidi confessed, as they walked across the park. Janet could have just changed the simulation to take them straight to the ride, but Chidi looked apprehensive enough that Michael wanted to give him some time and not just push him right into things. “They’ve always seemed rather terrifying, to be honest.”

“You find everything terrifying,” Eleanor told him, to which Chidi nodded, ruefully. 

“But roller coasters are a special kind of terrifying,” he countered. “What if it breaks, and we all go flying off the track and die in a fiery crash?”

“Sounds like something you’d find in the Bad Place,” Tahani commented. 

“Oh, no,” Michael told them. “No, roller coasters in the Bad Place are much different. Instead of going through a tunnel, the track leads into the mouth of a giant fire demon, where you’re eaten, and digested, and then you come out the other end to circle around and start the whole process over again.”

Getting nothing but silence, he looked back to see four horrified faces staring up at him. Right. Children’s emotional responses. Maybe the demonic roller coaster had been a bad choice. 

“But this is a simulation,” he hastily reminded them. “And Janet programmed every aspect, and everything is perfectly safe, and nothing can hurt you here.”

They still didn’t all look convinced, and Michael silently cursed himself. He was supposed to be making this a good experience for them, not scaring them half to death.

“Janet, help me out here,’ he muttered, quietly, and her answer was to send a giant rat in bright red pants toward them. 

Personally, Michael found the rat more terrifying than anything he’d ever seen in the Bad Place, but the excited yells from the kids showed that he was alone in that reaction. He stood back and watched them hug the giant rat (”Mouse,” Janet told him. “His name is Mickey Mouse.”), visibly relaxing as the their tension drained away. By the time they started off toward Space Mountain again, even Chidi was smiling happily.

* * *

Tahani, as it turned out, was prone to motion sickness. Very prone.

“I almost wish this were a real body,” she moaned in between dry heaves, from where she was bent over a garbage can. “That way I could just throw up and get it over with.”

“I could always program-” Janet started to suggest, but Eleanor quickly cut her off. 

“Do not make Tahani really throw up. That’s only going to make things worse, trust me.” She reached out to recapture a stray lock of Tahani’s hair that had escaped her grasp, gathering her long black hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face while she bent over the garbage can. “Give it another minute or two, babe,” she advised Tahani. “It’ll pass.”

“Hopefully this will help.” Chidi hurried up with a can on ginger ale in his hand that he and Jason had gone to get from a food cart. “I know it’s not real, and neither is your stomach, but I was hoping the placebo effect would come into play-”

Tahani just waved at him, gesturing for the can. She downed it like a shot, Eleanor giving her an impressed look. Then she cautiously backed away from the garbage can, sinking down onto a nearby bench with Eleanor’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. 

“I’m sorry for causing such a fuss,” she said, twisting her fingers together in an uncharacteristic show of anxiety. She didn’t even seem to be aware that she was doing it. “I never get sick; my parents always told me how inconvenient it was for them when I was sick.” She swallowed, hard, her face trembling as she fought the urge to cry. 

As an honorary human, Michael wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold Tahani, promising her that he would take care of her and never let anyone hurt her like that ever again. As a demon, he was ready to storm into the Bad Place and find Tahani’s parents, visiting on them every moment of misery and pain they’d ever given to their daughter. 

He settled instead for a middle ground, reaching out and gently squeezing her shoulder, earning a small, slightly watery smile in response. Her happiness at such a small show of affection made him angry all over again, but he buried it down deep. 

“Why don’t we do something a little less intense than Space Mountain?” he suggested, faking a cheerfulness he didn’t entirely feel. “Janet, what’s next on the agenda?”

* * *

Three hours later, Michael found himself trudging down Main Street, wanting nothing more than to collapse in exhaustion. And the kids clearly felt the same way. Eleanor, Tahani, and Chidi were just barely ahead of him, their feet dragging along the ground as they walked hand in hand. Jason had called ‘shotgun’ almost an hour ago, climbing up on Michael’s back and draping himself over his shoulders. He’d stopped squirming around on Michael’s back about fifteen minutes ago, and he might have been snoring softly. Michael tightened his grip on Jason’s legs to make sure he didn’t slip. 

“Janet,” he said, quietly, “I don’t want to end the simulation just yet, but I don’t think we’re up for any more Disney. Any ideas?”

“I might have one or two,” Janet told him, and then the simulation shimmered around them, forming the image of a peaceful lake. 

The others were so tired, it took them a second to even realize that things had changed, but they stumbled to a stop and looked back at him in confusion. 

“Michael, what’s going on?” Eleanor asked. 

“I just thought that a change of pace might be nice before we all went back to the real world,” Michael explained. “Winding down after all that excitement.”

“That does sound nice,” Tahani said, sitting down in a grassy area and pulling Eleanor and Chidi down after her. The three of them cuddled together in a pile, Eleanor and Chidi leaning against each other, and Tahani with her head in Eleanor’s lap. 

Michael joined them, easing Jason to the ground before sitting down himself. Opening his eyes a crack, Jason clambered back into Michael’s lap and tucked himself under his arm, immediately falling back asleep. 

They sat in peaceful silence for a few minutes before Tanahi abruptly demanded, “Tell us a story.”

“What kind of a story?” Michael asked, curiously. The only stories he knew were the ones they told to demon children; he wasn’t about to tell any of those to a group of humans. 

“Tell us about our afterlife,” Chidi spoke up. “Tell us about the time right before we came back to Earth, when you became good.”

Michael smiled; that he could do. “Once upon a time,” he started, “there was this group of the most stubborn, amazing, wonderful humans. And they were determined to save a demon who hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it-”

* * *

The last one out of the simulation, Michael pulled the transmitters out of his ears and handed them to Janet, who tucked them safely into a box with the other pairs for safekeeping. 

“Well, Michael,” Chidi said, “that was certainly an experience. I had - well, I think I had fun.”

“He means thank you,” Jason translated. To Chidi, he added, “Don’t worry, dude, I’ll introduce you to all kinds of fun things. Like skydiving!”

“And Eleanor and I will be there to make sure it doesn’t go too far,” Tahani reassured Chidi, when he started looking faintly nauseated. 

“We got your back,” Eleanor added, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Thank you for this afternoon,” Tahani said to Michael, surprising him with a quick embrace. “It was thoughtful of you.”

“You’re my friends,” Michael said, “and I care about you guys.”

“We should do it again, soon,” Jason told him. “Ooh,” he added, excitedly, “we could all go to a Jaguars game!”

He, Chidi, and Tahani left, cheerfully arguing about the nature of their next outing. Michael had expected Eleanor to go with them - she hadn’t talked a lot during their time in the simulator, and he figured that she was still angry with him - but she surprised him by staying behind. She had her hands hidden conspicuously behind her back, and Janet was failing to hide a huge grin, so Michael knew something was going on. He just had no idea what. 

“It’s not hard to figure out why you picked that particular simulation,” Eleanor told him. “I mean, you just gone done watching me deal with my crappy family for a day, and Tahani had to deal with her crappy family, and last time it was Jason’s crappy family, and is it wrong that I’m kinda rooting for Chidi’s family to be screwed up in some way? Just to keep the theme going?”

“Yeah, it’s a little wrong,” Janet told her. 

“Anyway,” Eleanor went on, “I had Janet whip up a little something while we were in the simulation.” 

She pulled her hands out from behind her back, revealing a dark blue ceramic mug. As he took the mug from her outstretched hand, Michael turned it to read ‘World’s Greatest Self-Appointed Father Figure’ in gold lettering. He swallowed hard around a lump in his throat, blinking back tears that welled in his eyes. 

“Eleanor-” he choked out.

“Our biological families may have been trashbags,” Eleanor told him, “but you and Janet are the family we chose, and you’re doing a pretty damn good job of it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Michael confessed. 

Eleanor tried to shrug it off. “It’s not really that big a deal,” she said, but Michael cut her off with a hug that made her speechless. 

“Thank you,” he told her, holding on as tightly as he dared. “Eleanor, this means more to me than I can possibly-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Eleanor interrupted him. “You love me.”

She’d clearly meant it jokingly, but Michael pulled away to look her straight in the eye. “I really do,” he told her, solemnly. “I have never been more proud to call you my friend, and I love you.”

Eleanor’s eyes suddenly looked suspiciously wet. “Yeah,” she said, quietly. “Me, too.”


End file.
